An Empirical Study Of Cognitive Semantic Approach For College English Polysemy Teaching

Polysemy refers to the linguistic phenomenon that a word has multiple related senses(Mark Johnson,1987).As an inseparable part of English vocabulary,polysemes are vital to learn English.Commonly as they are used in English,polysemes are identified as stumbling blocks for English learners when acquiring varied meanings of polysemy.Doubtful for the belief of the arbitrariness between senses in traditional vocabulary teaching,cognitive semantics contends that the variants of polysemy are systematically motivated and it further interprets semantically motivated polysemous senses in light of prototype,image schema,metaphor and metonymy theory(Zhao Yanfang,2001: 36).It promotes that the application of cognitive semantics in teaching practice might encourage language learners to gain a better understanding of polysemy phenomenon so that it will facilitate their polysemy-learning in future.Based on the preceding studies,the study mainly wants to address three specific research questions:(1)Does cognitive semantic way of polysemes teaching improve the efficiency for students' immediate retention of polysemes?(2)Does cognitive semantic way of polysemes teaching facilitate students in delayed retention of polysemes?(3)Does cognitive semantic polysemes teaching arouse students' interests in English learning,English vocabulary and polysemy-learning?To attain convincing results,the study carried out a 7-week experiment involving65 non-English sophomores at a Foreign Language Studies University in Xi'an fornon-English majors' limited time and shortness of learning strategies.The 65 subjects were made up of two intact classes with 33 in experimental class and 32 in control class.All the data were gathered from two groups of questionnaires and five pairs of vocabulary tests.The questionnaires were designed to investigate the influence of cognitive semantic teaching on students' interest in English,English vocabulary and polysemes-learning.Vocabulary tests of two classes made a comparative analysis of students' short-term and long-term recall of polysemous word meanings with and without cognitive semantic teaching.The results disclosed that cognitive semantic teaching way which explains the relatedness of word meanings from prototype,image schema,metaphor and metonymy exerted promising effects both on short-term and long-term retention of polysemous word meanings.In addition,EC students have remarkably increased their interests in English learning,English vocabulary and polysemes learning.